Andrew
Chino,#2Consumer Comment
Thu, July 20, 2006
As a follow up to my original post: After I attended this 3 day "teaser" seminar, I called the merchant account service provider to try an cancel any charges for a merchant account associated with my so called "free" website. The customer rep I talked to said she had no record of a merchant account being set up up in my name, but would be on the lookout for any such request. So at this point I'm thinking that I'm in the free and clear. As it turned out, I recieved a notice from HB Products Unlimited about a week after I attended the 3 day training presented by ISI. This letter indicated they have processed my activation according to my agreement. My intial response was to throw it into the trash because it looked like junk mail, but then I noticed the that the letterhead had the same address as ISI. I tried to access the so called free website referenced in the letter with the username and password given in the letter. Well, my passcode and user name did not work so I called the customer service number referenced in the letter at 1-801-495-1138 and ended up gettting a recording saying that the voicemail box was full and that I had to call back later. So these folks now have my credit card information since they captured it when I initially signed up for their 3 day, ripoff seminar and I have to worry about whether or not they are going to charge it again for a website and a merchant account that I don't even have access to. Since I can't reach them via phone, my only alternative is to send them a written letter requesting to cancel my account and to not charge me for anything else. Then I'll have to keep a close eye on my credit card statements for the next few months to make sure nothing funny goes on there. What a hassle! Also, the website they promoted via the letter can be found at www.hbproductsunlimited.com and was not discussed at all during the 3 day training I attended. By looking at the website, supposedly you can make money by driving traffic to your personalized websited where folks will place orders for a number of different products. These products may or may not be a good deal. Once an order is placed on your site, you are to reenter the order at www.hbproduct.com where you request HB Products Unlimited to drop ship the order for you. In my experience drop shipping is risky because on occasion, you will sell something that is out of stock or no longer being carried. Because you have already collected the money from your customer, you are on the hook to make it right and typically, customers aren't very happy about that. In their mind, they had a contract with you to deliver this great product at a great price and its your problem to deliver. Also, you can spend thousands of dollars trying to drive traffic to your website and customers are smart enough to figure out that if they can buy online from your website, they can probably go to EBAY.com and get it cheaper because the venders there are using the same drop shipper you are and are willing to make a few pennies on each transaction. The point being that online retailing is not as easy as just posting your website and letting the cash and orders roll in. It takes real work, time and resources to drive qualified traffic to your website and it is completely irresponsible for HB Products Unlimited and ISI (one and the same company) to just charge folks for a website and offer no training whatsoever on how to use that website to make money. If you already signed up for the 3 day seminar but haven't attended yet, call ISI at 801-280-8660 to try and get your $199 back. If you are currently attending the seminar and considering buying into $29,995 training, I challenge you to print out this post and ask the presenter to respond before buying into their package. Or if you decided not to buy the $29,995 package, I suggest you call HB Products Unlimited at 1-801-495-1138 or write them at 5647 Wells Park Road. Suite B, West Jordan, UT 84088 to make sure you don't get charged anything else since you probably signed the same paperwork I did agreeing to set up a "free" website with a merchant account.